1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an optical waveguide type synaptic weight modulator with a nematic liquid crystal cladding layer. The modulator adds weights, in the same manner as the synaptic action of a neural circuit, to an input signal consisting of a combination of different waveguide modes. The liquid crystal cladding layer is provided on a multimode channel waveguide and the modulation is controlled by an electric deflection effect with respect to a liquid crystal molecular direction. The present invention is to provide an optical waveguide type synaptic weight modulator used for optoelectronics and optical neural computing.
2. Description of the Related Art
Aiming at realization of optical space modulation having large-scale parallel processability and a self learning organizing function as required for optical neural computing, there have hitherto been proposed a vector-matrix learning operation system using a ferroelectric liquid crystal panel, an associative memory system using a hologram or a phase-conjugate mirror, and the like.
The prior art effectively utilizes parallelism, high speed and the noninductiveness of light, but light has no polarity in the electrical sense and cannot express a negative value. Furthermore there are no sufficient solutions for disadvantages such as an optical system is difficult to miniaturize, susceptible to vibration, hard to transport, and the like. Moreover, there are few clear and ideal techniques for improvement.